holy shit: "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole," by Isabel J. Kim. (the title is the content warning) clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/ - ThreadSky

katenepveu.bsky.social • 430 days ago

holy shit: "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole," by Isabel J. Kim. (the title is the content warning)

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/

Comments

notrickmoranis.bsky.social•429 days ago

https://youtu.be/9WfWh6P6FeA?si=6fgeXUZ5OiK2z1sT

Reminds me of these poems

iamanathemadevice.bsky.social•429 days ago

PDF of the original this is riffing on, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K LeGuin is here, for those who've missed out on reading it
https://files.libcom.org/files/ursula-k-le-guin-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas.pdf

hipstersasquatch.bsky.social•428 days ago

I remember after reading that the first time, after having had some time to process it, my first thought was "These people believe the kid is what mashed their lives possible? There's no way it's just one kid; what happens when the kid dies? There's multiple backup kids.
Every neighborhood has one."

hipstersasquatch.bsky.social•428 days ago

I knew it was a parable, but asking us to believe it's immune to human behavior is a bridge too far.

If Omelas has 1 kid in a hole, it's going to have dozens.

People would think: "What if someone rescued the kid? Or it succumbed to the suffering? WHAT IF THE KID'S BEEN MISSING & NO ONE TOLD US?!"

hipstersasquatch.bsky.social•428 days ago

Omelas may be presented as a perfect city built around a single speck of rot, but rot never stays quiet. It spreads, and never stops.

kcostik.bsky.social•429 days ago

This story is the SF parable equivalent of the "I...worked on this story for a year...and...he just...he tweeted it out" meme (in a good way.)

willwheels1.bsky.social•429 days ago

This is a great story!

chazrunner.bsky.social•429 days ago

I see this is a modern continuation of a 1973 short story by Ursula K Le Guinn,
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”

shinybluething.bsky.social•429 days ago

Yes, that's the premise.

chazrunner.bsky.social•429 days ago

Both of these stories are very good. The 1973 one haunted me for years.

timkimber.bsky.social•428 days ago

Is the original available to read online anywhere do you think?

aceemerald.bsky.social•428 days ago

https://files.libcom.org/files/ursula-k-le-guin-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas.pdf

timkimber.bsky.social•428 days ago

Thank you!

thequantummage.bsky.social•429 days ago

Have you read N. K. Jemisin's response story to Omelas, as well?

https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/

cynthiasaysboo.bsky.social•429 days ago

The Jemisin story is one of my favorite stories of all time, because it challenges us not just on fighting back, but on what to do next.

This is where I mention I also have a response story, about the last freed child and what healing might look like for them.
http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/the-ones-who-come-back-to-heal/

iamanathemadevice.bsky.social•428 days ago

That was wonderful, thank you.❤️

cynthiasaysboo.bsky.social•428 days ago

🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲

thequantummage.bsky.social•429 days ago

A wonderful story, with beautiful, evocative prose. Thank you for the link!

cynthiasaysboo.bsky.social•429 days ago

🥲🥲

cynthiasaysboo.bsky.social•429 days ago

Thank you both. Made my chilly Sunday morning.

thequantummage.bsky.social•429 days ago

And thank you - you brought tears (appreciative) to my eyes. I think it's a fair trade. :)

justinallec807.bsky.social•429 days ago

Brilliant

cynthiasaysboo.bsky.social•429 days ago

🥲

katenepveu.bsky.social•429 days ago

yes, but thanks for the link for others!

thequantummage.bsky.social•429 days ago

You're more than welcome -- and thank you for the link to Isabel Kim's story. It's a though provoking read!

brookenewman.bsky.social•429 days ago

The staying and fighting was always what was missing from the original story.

cynthiasaysboo.bsky.social•429 days ago

I agree. It's one of the reasons I love Jemisin's story so much.

grumpyben.bsky.social•429 days ago

Yeah, I thought of that, too! N. K. Jemisin is on here, wonder if she'll comment on it: [email protected] .

thequantummage.bsky.social•429 days ago

Hey, Ben, just a couple of notes here:

1] Please don't snitch tag. If I'd wanted Ms. Jemisin tagged in this thread, I would have done so myself.

2] I'm pretty sure that the ".@" lead-in to her handle is an old time Twitter thing which doesn't even work there, anymore, for BlueSky, just use an "@".

grumpyben.bsky.social•429 days ago

Duly noted.

victoriajanssen.bsky.social•429 days ago

Holy shit is right. I already added a Nebula rec to the SFWA boards.

gamescan.bsky.social•429 days ago

Reads much like the plot of Star Trek Strange New Worlds: Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach.

Major difference is that the short story is set on Earth vs another planet and no one is fighting for the kid here.

evilmagnus.bsky.social•429 days ago

That episode was a direct homage to the original "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" story by Ursula K. LeGuin.

yuweiquan.bsky.social•428 days ago

“homage”

evilmagnus.bsky.social•428 days ago

Yeah, I do wonder if the writer's room ever felt just the slightest bit of guilt over not crediting Le Guin at all for that.

yuweiquan.bsky.social•428 days ago

I do wonder that myself. It must have occurred to someone in there, right?

evilmagnus.bsky.social•428 days ago

So it looks like there were only two writers for that episode; Robin Wasserman and Bill Wolkoff. Wolkoff has more writing credits with a longer writing career, so I'd guess it came from him - but still that's a big guess.

petercashwell.bsky.social•429 days ago

Holy fuck.

esgnet.bsky.social•415 days ago

What a delightful modern update to the story! I am being only a little bit ironic. It is, certainly, a story with perfect truth.

gummih.com•429 days ago

Yes! Vonnegut lives.

chrisnjwilliams.bsky.social•429 days ago

Have you seen this one, from 2022? https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/willrich_06_22/

iamanathemadevice.bsky.social•428 days ago

So beautiful, thank you for linking it

katenepveu.bsky.social•429 days ago

no, thank you!

esgnet.bsky.social•415 days ago

Holy shit. Holy shit. In a thread of holy shit stories, this is the one that really took my breath.

chrisnjwilliams.bsky.social•415 days ago

There’s always a bigger fish.

esgnet.bsky.social•415 days ago

I just, my permaculture environmentalist brain got to the ending juxtaposition of "you should turn alla yous into Bright Joyous Ones" and "Low-Technology Agricultural Sufficiency" + narrator's choice and then just dissolved into gibbering.

kithrup.bsky.social•429 days ago

... i cannot contain that story in myself

spladayum.bsky.social•429 days ago

That is fantastic!

drdarkeny.bsky.social•428 days ago

At first I wasn't sure about this story, then I saw where it was going....

voiceless.bsky.social•429 days ago

I was kind of afraid that in this story other cities, looking at Omelas and following it example, started to get more kids into more torture rooms.

normajane.bsky.social•429 days ago

🤯

cherylynne.bsky.social•427 days ago

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Except it ain’t that easy. Thank gawd for speculative fiction.

lielac.bsky.social•413 days ago

holy SHIT.

grahamistearingup.bsky.social•429 days ago

I was always mixed on the utilitarian approach to that story. I feel like if the only way you could have a functioning utopia was if “magic was real” we’d probably have a different discussion about it.

borubyarlo.bsky.social•429 days ago

It's a metaphor for capitalism. The citizens callously justify their utopia built on the misery of another, and the ones who leave are seeking a place even harder to believe than Omelas. Yet that is the only optimistic part of the story for a reason.

grahamistearingup.bsky.social•429 days ago

Maybe the ending of this story (the one posted) touched on the issue I had with the first one. The citizens are made conscious of the suffering and must take accountability for it. The ones who leave may still play a role in another’s suffering, but don’t have to any accountability.

borubyarlo.bsky.social•429 days ago

I've always thought the narrator of the story is one of those people who walked away. It's why they need people to understand what Omelas is and the cruel bargain they've struck. They can't force everyone to leave Omelas, but they can at least educate everyone else.

rifka.bsky.social•429 days ago

I was surprised how much i hated the original. But it did seem like hate was one of the reactions she was going for. I think it’s a story someone who is adjusted to 1970s society could write about choices such a person could make. some of us ARE the child

wallet55.bsky.social•428 days ago

I think it is a metaphor for almost every kind of social governance, capitalism just happens to be the one in our face right now.

jgilligan.org•428 days ago

That's where @nkjemisin.bsky.social's "The Ones Who Stay and Fight" is so good.

https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/

iamanathemadevice.bsky.social•428 days ago

thank you for linking to this, and yes, so good!

wallet55.bsky.social•428 days ago

Wonderful. Terrible. I wonder how many know the original story, and does it make a difference if you don’t?

jpspalding.com•429 days ago

That was so good! It even addressed all the fourth wall breaking metaphorical interpretations. It’s so on top of it

sergeitsardust.bsky.social•428 days ago

... wow. Okay.

amberglas.bsky.social•429 days ago

That is an incredible bit of writing.

jclarkpowers.bsky.social•49 days ago

I'd love to see a family tree of Omelan allegories, with Le Guin as the central node.
I've seen Le Guin reference Dostoevsky and William James in relation to the core question. I'm sure those guys worked in a vacuum...

jclarkpowers.bsky.social•49 days ago

Seems like I've got myself a bounding problem.

Maybe let's trace the bright thread from Enkidu to Omelas kid. Doableish.

In the meantime, here's some @nkjemisin.bsky.social

https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/

heartlessgamer.com•415 days ago

Got my attention! Will check this out.

6sidedgames.bsky.social•429 days ago

Holy Shit indeed.

nuclearanthro.bsky.social•429 days ago

ping @jdmar3.bsky.social

cofax.bsky.social•430 days ago

yeah, that was kind of my reaction as well. It's brilliant and. horrible and oh so believable

katenepveu.bsky.social•430 days ago

did I get the link from you? it was just in my tabs and I have no recollection of where I got it from.

cofax.bsky.social•429 days ago

possibly! I reposted it from @snurri.bsky.social

wabisabihobo.bsky.social•429 days ago

TY for posting this.

puntloos.bsky.social•429 days ago

Great premise, could've done with some editing after a few repeats imo but overall a worthy read.

wabisabihobo.bsky.social•429 days ago

I found the repetition a powerful device.

jaredadams.bsky.social•429 days ago

Read this and thought, that's a whole Welcome to Night Vale episode right there, and then saw Joseph Fink had already reskeeted it.

coldforge.bsky.social•429 days ago

I was just thinking about the Ursula K LeGuin story because of that recent Paramount+ ad ("Throw the child!"), what weird timing.

Great story by Kim.

iisaw.bsky.social•429 days ago

Makes me wish Shirly Jackson had written a companion piece to Omelas.

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